


Every Last One of My Demons

by nostalgicatsea



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 09:46:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15749193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgicatsea/pseuds/nostalgicatsea
Summary: Steve was right. There was no point in pretending to be okay, not after Thanos, not when nothing and nobody was. Whatever came of opening up to Steve, nothing could hurt him as much as what had already happened.And yet, Tony thought, mere inches and an entire ocean away from him, not moving away but not touching him.And yet.





	Every Last One of My Demons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ishipallthings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishipallthings/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Все мои демоны](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17065928) by [NewBeginnings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewBeginnings/pseuds/NewBeginnings)



> ishipallthings prompted ["stevetony and emotional hurt/comfort after nightmares?"](http://nostalgicatsea.tumblr.com/post/177004185724/stevetony-and-emotional-hurtcomfort-after) on Tumblr.

They were like bedtime stories, his nightmares. Horrible ones, ones he didn’t ask for, but ones that were old and familiar, ones that he knew every line of, like the stories Jarvis, Ana, and his mother would take turns reading to him as a kid. But instead of valiant knights saving the day, it was monsters that populated his stories now. Ghoulish, hideous creatures, swarms of them darkening the sky, Earth’s very own plague of locusts. Fathers who groomed their children for war, for their own gain; fathers who thought they knew best and wreaked irrevocable damage, who seemed truly sorry to some degree that it had to come to this but went through with their plans anyway. Monsters who stood by as their children died in front of them or in their arms.  
  
There were no victories in his dreams, no happy endings.  
  
The compound was as empty and dark as deep space, and Tony was tempted to ask FRIDAY to turn on some lights except he didn’t want to see empty hallways either. The compound was too big for the few who had survived. Had been too big since Steve had gotten most of the kids after the split over the Accords.  
  
He should have kept the tower except it was much harder to ignore what happened in a city halved and gripped by chaos.  
  
Tony paused at the end of the hallway. The lab or the kitchen. Left or right.  
  
He went right. He hadn’t gone into his lab since he came back. He didn’t see a point. There was no battle to win. There could be no more battles after this. The war had been one to end all battles.  
  
That was what Thanos had wanted, a peace of sorts.  
  
He paused at the entrance of the kitchen. The air was thick with the rich, creamy scent of coffee.  
  
Steve was sitting at the island, clasping a mug and staring at nothing.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
He had said it aloud without thinking. Steve was looking at him now, as surprised as he was, as tired as he sometimes looked the few times they had bumped into each other at the tower during the dead hours of the night.  
  
“Just like old times,” Tony almost said, but they were too aware of the way it wasn’t, too sad about that for him to say it, and he didn’t want Steve to know that he couldn’t sleep anyway.  
  
Steve pulled out the chair beside him. It felt like both a command and an invitation. Tony walked over, through the too big kitchen, where Wanda and Vision used to try recreating the dishes from Wanda’s childhood once a week, Wanda and Vision who were d— _don’t think about that, don’t_ think _about that—_ and sat down next to Steve.  
  
There.  
  
_I’m not afraid of you_.  
  
Except…except now that he was next to Steve, it had seemed silly, that fight or flight impulse, when all he wanted to do was lean against Steve’s shoulder and close his eyes, to go to sleep with Steve solid under him, his presence a weight that would anchor him as he slept, that would remind him that Steve was alive and with him, not dead, not countries, planets, or galaxies away.  
  
Tony grabbed an apple from the fruit basket on the counter and pretended that that was what he was there for. Pretended to be wide awake, fresh off a good night’s rest, not startled awake by nightmares. Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, ready to face a new day—that was him.  
  
“Early start for you too?” he asked. He rolled the apple between his palms. It was waxy. He had no desire to eat it, the very thought of biting into it unappealing.  
  
“Something like that.”  
  
Steve was lying. He was dressed in a plain T-shirt and worn sweatpants, home clothes or PJs, not his workout gear. Tony hated himself for knowing the difference.  
  
“Well, don’t mind me. I’m just gonna…” He gestured with the hand holding the apple as though he were going to eat it, not put it back the minute Steve left the room.  
  
Steve didn’t answer even as the seconds trickled by excruciatingly slow, every second an uncomfortable weight stacked on Tony’s back, trying to bend it forward.  
  
“On second thought, I’ll eat it in the lab. I’ve got work—”  
  
“Why are we doing this?” Steve cut in, muted and somber.  
  
“What?”  
  
Steve faced him. For the first time since they met, Tony thought Steve showed all of his hundred years.  
  
“Pretending we’re fine, like we don’t know why the other person’s in the kitchen at four in the morning when we’ve done this before. I know why you’re here; it’s why I am. There’s no reason for us to keep doing this. But we do.”  
  
He knew Steve was right. There wasn’t any point, not after the war. It was a useless exercise, trying to bullshit and convince the other person that they were okay when nothing and nobody was. All those walls, all those pretenses that they had kept up all these years to, what, show that they didn’t need each other? Show that they cared but hide exactly how much? To avoid getting hurt?  
  
They had already hurt each other. They had already realized that they needed each other—more than they might have even realized—too late and at the worst possible time. Thanos had seen to that. They had seen to that.  
  
“I don’t know,” Tony lied. _I’m not afraid of you_ , he had thought only minutes before. He elected to go for the truth; Steve had opened up to him, and he never did that. Tony could understand the urge not to even if his didn’t come from an entirely self-sacrificial place like Steve’s. He set the apple down and kept his hand there, a foot away from Steve’s, kept calm and kept from fidgeting. “Hard to imagine anything can hurt me after everything. And yet,” he said, smiling humorlessly.  
  
And yet.  
  
“I didn’t want to hurt you. I still don’t,” Steve said. “And I won’t ever hurt you like that again.”  
  
Tony could feel the weight of Steve’s eyes; he hadn’t looked away from Tony once since he had asked the question. He concentrated on his hand instead of returning Steve’s gaze, on keeping it flat and unmoving against the table.  
  
“My promises probably don’t mean much to you,” Steve said, and Tony knew that he was thinking about the phone.  
  
He stayed quiet.  
  
Steve seemed to take that as affirmation, nodding once as if he had expected it before looking at Tony again. “I do mean it, though,” he said. “I want you to know that.”  
  
He did.  
  
That wasn’t what he was afraid of, betrayal. He knew, just as Steve did, that there were decisions—mistakes—that he had made that he would never make again.  
  
He was afraid of allowing himself to love Steve and of Steve loving him back. If Steve accepted his heart, he would have it in his hands, and he knew their strength, their great ability to destroy. He had come close to giving it away, once.  
  
_“I won’t ever hurt you like that again.”_  
  
What would Steve do if he loved him? What promise could Steve make to him if he loved him back? Because he knew that Steve would if he did. He had seen it personally, what it was like to have Steve swear an oath to someone he cared about. Even time, enemy to all, couldn’t stand up to him; nearly a century after they had met, after decades had ripped them apart, Steve did his damn best to be by Barnes’s side, to hell with the world.  
  
Tony wondered if Steve dreamed of Barnes dying in front of him. If his mind flooded with panic as he scrambled to hold Barnes together, to keep him from disintegrating in his arms even if he wanted nothing more than to scrub Barnes’s ashes off of him.  
  
It was a while before he spoke, but when he did, he decided to meet Steve halfway and give him what he wanted. Answering Steve’s promise, telling him he knew Steve would keep it, would be useless. Steve wouldn’t believe him, and it would be a long while before he would. But this…this he could give. His nightmares were worthless to him; he had a surfeit of them. But to Steve they would have value, would represent something else—a different form of trust.  
  
“I dreamed of him tonight. The kid,” he offered carefully. Evenly. His hand felt dirty. He wanted to pull it back into his lap, under the table and out of Steve’s sight, to rub his palm against his thigh over and over again.  
  
Steve let go of the mug and lowered his hand next to his.  
  
“I saw Bucky in mine.”  
  
Their pinkies were a hair’s breadth apart, not quite touching. Tony wanted to loop his around Steve’s and bring Steve’s hand towards him.  
  
He wanted to hold it, but there was something grimy stuck under his nails and his entire hand was coated with a layer of something thick and suffocating. He couldn’t touch Steve like that.  
  
“He dies,” Tony said hoarsely instead of touching him. “Every night and all I can do is watch.”  
  
He stayed as motionless as possible, brittle and rigid—the smallest movement would break him.  
  
He didn’t think he could be put back together if it did.  
  
He started when Steve covered his hand with his, his fingers bumping against Steve’s.  
  
Steve curled his fingers over them, stilling them. “Me too,” he said. His hand felt warm and clean, reassuringly solid over Tony’s. Protective.  
  
Tony turned his palm upwards and linked their fingers together.  
  
“Every night,” Steve added quietly as he did. He stared at their clasped hands, not doing anything except sweeping a trail across the back of Tony’s with his thumb, cleansing him.  
  
Tony held onto him, firmly, and Steve answered him with a gentle squeeze of his own.  
  
They stayed like that, not saying anything and not letting go, sitting together in the too empty room, waiting for dawn to arrive.


End file.
